Examination of research trends on patient factors in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators

Background: The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is the most effective treatment available for terminating potentially life-threatening ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation and reducing the risk of mortality. Despite its established health benefits, ICD therapy is accompanied by a unique array of patient and psychological factors meriting ample research attention. The purpose of this paper is to examine research trends and results regarding patient factors in cardiac and ICD research and to discuss key areas for future research. Hypothesis: An increase in articles associated with patient factors in cardiac and ICD research will be shown over time. Methods: The Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) system in PubMed was used to index articles under a range of psychosocial headings for both cardiovascular disease and ICDs to quantify the frequency of articles published across time, the journals most frequently utilized, the most productive institutions, and the most common areas of inquiry. Results: A significant positive relationship was revealed be tween patient factors in cardiac research (r = 0.96, p < 0.01) and ICD research (r = 0.88, p < 0.01) over time. Research is limited by the small number of investigations and institutions. Of the 178 articles on patient factors in ICD research, the most frequent areas of inquiry were psychosocial treatment (70.79%), anxiety (33.15%), quality of life (32.02%), and depression (29.78%). Conclusion: Future research examining positive adjustment is warranted, especially in light of increased prophylactic ICD implantation and possible decreased treatment burden associated with decreased shocks.